Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	jesus_n	son_n	14,487	5	5.3429	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91004	Syneidēsilogia ̇or, The doctrine of conscience, framed according to the points of the catechisme, in the Book of Common-Prayer. / By the Right Reverend Father in God, John Prideaux, late Lord Bishop of Worcester, for the private use of his wife.	Prideaux, John, 1578-1650.; N. Y.	1656 (1656)	Wing P3436; Thomason E1697_2; ESTC R203209	47,433	193

this life and can receive no benefit by our prayers others may have sinned against the Holy ghost and God's decree is past upon them for whom we are not to pray An evill man D. in an evill way petitioning for an evill thing may speed no better then Bathsheba did for Adeniah in her suit to Solomon to give him Abishag to wife charity in our praiers is to be understood to extend no further then Gods word doth limit it To pray for the dead who have their immutable doom we have no warrant It is sufficient ground therefore for our conscience in this behalf that God would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledg of his truth to make it a petition in our Litany that it may please him to have mercy upon all men we beseech thee to hear us good Lord. Wherein we expresse our charitable desires leaving it to God to distinguish for whom our prayers shall be effectuall A further direction may be that of our Saviour to his Disciples Mat. ●0 11 13. if ye come into a house salute it and if the house be worthy let your peace come upon it but if the house be not worthy let your peace returne to you So our devotion in prayer for all shall be acceptable to our father who maketh his sun to rise on the evill as on the good and his raine to fall on the unjust as on the just though the saving benifit thereof shall redound only to those whom God hath appointed it shall take with The second word in our Lords prayer is C. II. Father which sheweth to what person in the blessed Trinity we should direct our prayers This prayer then being not only a prayer to be used of all but also a patterne to all what warrant then hath a scrupulous conscience to direct its prayers not to Saints or Angells or any other creatures for that good Christians are easily satisfied in but either to the Son or holy Ghost in as much as we are precisely to keep to the rule which our Saviour hath left us and not to frame other devotions how religion soever they may seeme to be according to the model of our owne fancies This ground being laid in our Creed D. that the three Persons howsoever distinguished are but one God it will necessarily follow thereupon that whosoever prayeth to one prayeth to all and all the persons howsoever distinguished in themselves yet in relation to the creatures may be called Father And beside for the directing of our prayers to the Son we have that of Saint Stephen Lord Jesu receive my spirit Act. 7.59 And for that of the holy Ghost who gave a commandement separate me Barnabas and Saul to the worke which I have called them which must needs be taken for the command of a person that was God It follows after they had fasted and prayed 3. to whom can we imagine that they have prayed but to him who gave the command Matth. 28. This is confirmed by our baptizing equally in the name of the holy Ghost as of the Father and Son and by S. Pauls blessing taking in equally the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son Where he maketh this as his ordinary blessing The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 13.14 and the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Where the putting of Jesus Christ before the Father plainly sheweth that as we have it in Athanasius Creed in this mysterious and sacred Trinity none is afore or after another none is greater or lesse then other That which is done therefore to one is done to all For which that attribute in the prayer of the Apostles may be taken for a further ground The Text is they prayed and said Act. 1. thou Lord which knowest the hearts of all men To him that knoweth therefore our hearts and to no other we may safely direct our prayer and who will deny that the Holy Ghost knoweth our hearts which is said to guide and lead into all truth That petition therefore in our Liturgy with the like O God the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son have mercy upon us miserable sinners and the Doxology so often repeated glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost cannot be excepted against but only by such wretches which deny the Sacred Trinity Notwithstanding as some prayers are private of or by our selves others publick with the congregation As private prayers are usually not necessarily directed to either of the Persons So publick are most orderly in the first place tendered to the Father through our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus that he will vouchsafe us his Holy Spirit to furnish us with all blessings to accomplish all our warrantable petitions And according to this are all or most of our Liturgicall petitions framed which in an uniformity shew the order of the Persons in the Trinity and prevent distractions which might arise amongst the weaker by reason of variety From the first petition C. III. hallowed be thy name may arise this doubt That in as much as our Saviour approved of such as cast out devills in his name yet followed him not and would not have them forbidden and the Jewes attribute even at this day a virtue to the name Jehovah that miracles may be done by it in regard whereof in reverence they dare not to utter it Why may not we thinke that the name of God used by Magicians and exorcists gathered by Cabala from the Scripture may worke wonders in casting out divills curing diseases and foretelling events and thereupon with a safe conscience have recourse to wizards for aid in that behalfe The name of God in the scripture especially importeth propriety authority and ability So that being baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost we are made Gods peculiar to submit to his authority under the protection of his omnipotent ability In this petition therefore it is as foolish as superstitious by the name of God to understand from the coupling of the letters the sound resulting from it or to imagine an hidden virtue to be in the characters or sound of words to terrifie spirits or worke other wonders The hallowing of Gods name is the setting forth of Gods glory in all his attributes to which all our petitions must be referred that his kingdome in his Church may be promoted here to be perfected hereafter in heaven and his will be done in order according as is prescribed in his word Which warrantable directions we have from that guide that will not deceive Saul will get cold comfort by consuting with the witch of Endor 1 Sam 28. 2 Kings 1 or Ahaziah by sending to Beelzebub of Ekron Our Saviour reproveth rather the aemulous jealousie of his disciples then approveth of the parties that made use of his name whom they would

from the sense and directions no more then we can imagine the leaves of a Physick book will cure a disease or wound if it be applyed to the part ill affected Those pieces therefore of Scripture or names of God or Angels thence pretended to be deduced by Exorcists and Magicians or names of the three Kings of Cullen or the beginning of Saint Iohns Gospel or the like hung about the neck of any are delusions of Satan The words that I spake unto you are spirit and life saith our Saviour John 6.63 and were written that ye might believe and that believing ye might have life through his name Iohn 20.31 not for charms to doe mischiefe or seeming cures upon the body which Satan useth as a bait to destroy the soule Let the Pythonists in the Acts say never so truly concerning S. Paul and Silas these men are the servants of the most high God which shew to us the way of Salvation Act. 16.17 yet Saint Paul would not endure such she-Chaplains of the Devills ordering who take up good to do mischief and act the Devils part in the attire of an Angell The punishment of the mongrell-blasphemer Lev. 24. should make all conscionable men afraid how they adventure to make bold with Gods Sacred name or word lest perchance as the Sons of Sceva they meet with some mad Devils that will wound and strip them for their folly and terrifie others causing them to burne such damnable books of curious Arts though of never so much esteemed value Act. 19.18 19. On the contrary a Conscience must be made for the abusing any parts of the Bible or things once consecrated to God to prophane and sordid uses lest Belshazzers proscription stand against them to their sodaine ruine for non est tutum ludere cum sanctis as the common saying is it is not good to dally with a Deity CHAP. III. Cases concerning the Apostles Creed THree Creeds are received in all Catholick Churches the first called the Apostles Creed the second the Nicene and the third the Creed of Athanasius The two latter of these are but expositions of the Apostles Creed composed more especially to withstand the Arian Heresie which denyed the Deity of Christ and had then well-nigh over-spread the whole face of Christianity Into the Apostles Creed as our Liturgy hath hitherto led our fore-fathers we were baptized To make then this the first case of Conscience it may be well enquired Whether the rejecting this Creed C. I. out of our Liturgies and Catechismes into which we were baptized and to which our sureties undertook for us we should alwayes stand to be not a kind of renouncing or rather plain Apostacy from the Faith we were baptized in whereto may be applyed that speech of God to Samuel they have not rejected thee but me 1 Sam. 8.7 They can best give satisfaction to this that have been the actors in it To say they supply it in the Doctrine of their preaching their auditors will tell them that they have not the art nor are taught it by them how to pick out so punctuall Articles for their Belief and so to order them that they may have them by heart to be ready alwaies to give an account to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in them as Saint Peter chargeth 1 Pet. 3.15 upon which they may ground the good Conscience that followes in the next verse Now those that have a touch of Conscience reason thus with themselves either the new Articles we are to expect from the Sermons of our new Lights are the same which we had in our old Creeds or different If they prove the same why might not the old have stohd but if we shall have new Articles of our Creed which the Papists themselves hold to be above his Holinesse authority to make then woe to our ancestors that have so long misled and to our dull capacity which cannot with a safe conscience yet cease to contend for the Faith which hitherto we have conceived was once delivered to the Saints Jud. 2. How may the Conscience be assured C. II. that this is the Apostles Creed which is stood somuch for seeing the tradition that it was made by the twelve Apostles before their separation to preach the Gospel hath no warrant to confirme it Though it may not be call'd the Apostles Creed as divers D. of the ancients would have it because it was made immediately by the Apostles themselves yet modern Divines are forced to agree in this that the Articles in it are clear deductions from the Doctrine of the Apostles in which sense it is rightly called the Apostles Creed in substance though not for composure A true translation is held with us for the Word of God though not so immediately yet as undoubtedly as the originall Christ is said in this Creed to be conceived by the Holy Ghost C. III according to that of Saint Matthew that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost cap. 1.20 and of Saint Lute cap. 1.35 the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee therefore that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God Whence an ungrounded Conscience may gather that Christ should be rather called the Son of the person of the Holy Ghost then the onely Son of the first person the Father Almighty which confoundeth the believed doctrine of the sacred Trinity and is urged by Novellists to puzzle weake Consciences The Nicene Creed clears this D. by putting a plain difference between begetting made and incarnate Begetting hath relation onely to the Father begotten of the Father saith the Creed not of the Holy Ghost before all worlds that is from eternity as God of God Light of Light very God of very God being therefore of one substance with the Father that begot him infinitely of a higher pitch then any thing that was made For things made are all sorts of Creatures and so the Son that begotten from eternity was made Man in the fulness of time when it is said he was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and this incarnation is appropriated to the Holy Ghost though it be the worke of the whole Trinity united ever in all outward operations in regard this power of the Highest proceeds from the Father and Son and is next in order and more conspicuous to the producing of the greatest effects Whence as in the Creation the spirit of God is mentioned moving upon the waters so in Christs baptisme the Spirit is visible in the shape of a Dove and in inspiring the Apostles in cloven tongues where the Father was onely heard or heard of not seen and the Son not seen as the begotten Word but as he took flesh and dwelt amongst us Joh. 1. But these mysteries are more submissively rather to be believed then curiously pryed into The beginning therefore of our Letanie expressing as much

examples the rewards upon the fulfilling thereof and punishments attending the breaking of it The Moralities in Iob David and Solomon the exercise of patience devotions and all manner of wisdome in all cases whatsoever The Prophets beating down the wickedness of the times lead us to Christ whom the Gospels in the N. T. set forth as the Prophet Priest King on which the Church must wholly depend whose planting and progresse is set forth in the Acts of the Apostles doctrine laid down in the Epistles and expectances in the Revelation by a method so connected that none but prating fooles as the wise man termes such may carp at wherein the obscurities of some places are enlightned by the clearnesse of others or set as taskes for the industry of the greatest wits to beat down their pride and presumption that finding themselves over-mastered they may seek unto God by prayer for that they acknowledge themselves to come short of Whereupon the dissentions that arise prove the faults of the wranglers not the insufficiency of the rule no more then the different judgments of Artists doe the disorder-linesse of the coelestiall or terrestrial bodies Upon cansideration of the new covenant fore-told by Jeremy C. III. c. 31.33 and ratified by the Apostle to the Hebrews c. 8.10 wherein a plain promise is made of writing Gods Law so in mens hearts that they shall not need to teach one another because all shall be so gifted may not a weak Conscience be warped to think well of the Swenchfeldists and enthusiasticall Wrigelians of these times to lay aside the letter that the Spirit may act the more freely The old and new Covenant are both alike D. under hand and seal though the tenure be diverse the first was of Workes the other is of Faith for our Justification the one saith Doe this and live the other Believe in him that hath satisfied for thee and thou shalt be saved The spirit indeed is promised to lead us into all truth but not by frantick enthusiasmes but by the Scripture which is written for our learning and many times walketh under the name of the Spirit too God hath in these last dayes spoken unto us by his Son Hebr. 1. Joh. 5.39 Rom. 1.16 which is his Word and which alone ought to be our guide search ye the Scriptures is commanded us which are the conduit of Life and Power of God unto Salvation Thus we are taught of God not to inquire at the Oracles of our Lusts and Phantasies but of his word not to be led by conceipts of our owne framing but by the means of his prescribing the outward preaching of the Word and the inward operation of the Spirit to embrace it It is thought amongst many Learned Godly C. IV. and painfull Ministers that the bare reading of the Word in publick or private is not of power sufficient to beget Faith in the hearers what comfort shall any therefore finde in assemblies by scripture where there is no preaching Minister and how can I esteem of that my Conscience tells me will doe me no good Dilating upon a text of Scripture D. taken at adventure must not be taken for the onely preaching that begets Faith it may set an edge upon some hearers devotion but can adde no efficacy to the Text that is quick and powerfull of it selfe and sharper then any two edged sword to discerne the very thoughts and hearts intentions Heb. 4.12 Beside it is well known that Moses was held to be preached by the Apostle in that he was read in the Synagogue every Sabboth day Act. 15.21 Those that benefit not therefore by hearing the Text read which they may well rely upon will hardly be better edified by the glosse which may be as obscure as that and far more liable to exceptions And should not our Saviours and the Apostles Sermons instruct them better that often heare them reiterated with attention then a set speech of a man of meaner gifts that may be forgotten as soon as it is uttered and ofttimes is more intricate and obscure then the Text it indeavoured to explaine This must be taken not to detract from solid and seasonable preaching but for vindicating of the word read from the abatement and scorne too many put upon it in these evill dayes The Scripture being acknowledged to be the undoubted word of God C. V. conteining that counsel of his which he would have communicated unto all for their Salvation with what Conscience may any portion of it be kept back from being read in the Congregation as the Canticles with divers other parts of the Old Testament and most part of the Revelation in the New The not reading of some passages in Scripture in publick detract nothing from their Authority onely serve to put a difference between milke and stronger meat according to the stomachs that are to receive it I have many things to say unto you saith Christ to his Disciples but ye cannot bear them now What would the Hebrew titles the Higgaions Selahs c. in Davids Psalms benefit the auditory when the Teachers themselves cannot agree what to thinke of them So Genealogies in the Chronicles and the not understood praedictions in the Apocalipse which the Learned make use of the Vulgar may sooner cavill at them then in any sort be bettered by them How may any with a safe conscience endure the reading of the C. VI. Apocrypha in the Church especially when so many Chapters of Canonicall Scripture are laid aside that may supply the yearly course of reading with more sure Doctrine and more evident then from the Apocrypha can be expected In the titles of our Bibles D. the Apocrypha is sufficiently distinguished from the Canonicall Scripture so that the Chapters that are read out of it are not prescribed to set aside the Canonicall it being left to the choice of the Minister to reade such Chapters in their stead as he thinks fit And by reason of the consonancy of that which is read out of them with the Canon the respect by the antient given unto them and the instructiveness of the style some choice passages are read out of them as of ancient and received homilies making for the better explication of the Canon which those that most oppose them cannot deny but they may as well be approved as their comments upon a Text which 't is presumed they would not have to be taken as Canonicall How far may Scripture be conscionably used in exorcises in casting out C. VII or commanding Devills or in charms for curing of diseases or in preservatives in wearing it about us to protect us from severall dangers or inconveniences In such cases it may be used not at all D. otherwise then as the ground of prayer by which we must be supplicants to God that he would preserve and deliver us from all evill Naturall operations are not to be expected from the words of Scripture but morall